


That Simple Simplicity

by parrishsrubberplant (genus_species)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Getting Together, Getting blackout drunk, Idiots in Love, M/M, Nursey Patrol, Nursey is a cuddly octopus, Sharing Clothes, Unbeta'd, mention of past non-con, the morning after
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9474722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genus_species/pseuds/parrishsrubberplant
Summary: "He laughs, mentally and hysterically. Guess we are really d-men, and I bet no one else has ever made that pun in the whole history of hockey."Derek wakes up in Dex's bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note: There is a mention of past non-consensual sexual contact between Dex and an OFC. 
> 
> Title from Morphine's "Mile High."

Derek wakes up in three stages. Stage One: I am not in my bed. 

This doesn't bother him. He's comfortable and warm.

Stage Two: I am not alone in this bed.

Also not a problem. Derek Malik Nurse is a cuddly motherfucker, as the entire Samwell Mens Hockey Team will tell you. He snuggles closer to the arm around him; he likes to be held.

Stage Three: I am in bed with my fellow d-man.

He laughs, mentally and hysterically. Guess we really are d-men, and I bet no one else has ever made that pun in the whole history of hockey. Dex mutters something against the back of his neck and tightens his grip on Derek's torso.

I'm wearing boxers, thank God, Derek thinks. I'm wearing boxers and it's morning or probably mid-afternoon, and I'm hard and he's hard, and fuck. Oh fuck.

"You're thinking too loudly," Dex mutters and pulls Derek closer with a low, soft noise of contentment.

"Are you even awake?" Derek replies.

"Mmmm, no," Dex says. "Having the most wonderful dream, though," and he kisses Derek's bare shoulder.

"The fuck," Derek says, and yawns. He gets out of bed--it's like detangling from an octopus--pisses, climbs back into bed. Dex has rolled over onto his back. Derek pokes him in the ribs. "Please wake up now."

"No," Dex says, and pulls the pillow over his head.

Derek closes his eyes again. The next time he wakes up, Dex is still next to him, still under the covers, but wearing a shirt. He's balancing his phone on his sternum and reading a Washington Post article, or a National Review article, or some other source of reliable but conservative news.

It's not that he's taken the Samwell Republicans sticker off his laptop. Dex is never going to believe in big government, no matter how much Shitty talks at him. Dex's latest argument is that California is practically its own country anyway and should peacefully secede from the Union. To Derek's eternal surprise, Chowder agrees with Dex.

Derek turns his head to the side. "Hey."

Dex puts his phone down on his stomach. "Morning." He yawns. "Or, uh, afternoon."

Derek doesn't know how to ask the question. It's like lifting up the edge of a Band Aid. This is going to hurt in a second, even if he quickly rips it off. "What happened last night?"

Dex presses his lips together. "What do you remember?"

"I remember we lost. I remember I had a couple of drinks. I remember you were dancing with that tall volleyball guy. I remember losing count of the number of drinks I had." Derek sits up. His head is light but not achy. His stomach growls.

"That's up to about midnight," Dex says. He moves his phone over to his nightstand. "I noticed you were pretty messed up, so I brought you back here. You insisted on showering. You didn't drown. You stole my boxers. Umm." Is Dex going faintly pink now? Derek peers closely. "Then you kind of decided you were like my personal teddy bear, and I don't know, I rolled with it."

"Do I owe you an apology?"

Dex looks surprised. "For?"

"Losing. Cock blocking. Getting super fucked up."

Dex shakes his head. "Not your fault, you didn't, and I was going to do the same, only I kind of thought we both might die if I did."

Derek laughs. His stomach growls.

Dex leans over and roots in his dresser drawer. He emerges with a squashed Power Bar and a look of triumph. "Eat. Stop worrying."

Derek takes the Power Bar. He eats it slowly. He still doesn't have anywhere near the headache he ought to, after a night of that much drinking. "I don't like blacking out," he says.

"You were really sad, for part of the night," Dex says. He rearranges his pillows more comfortably behind his back and moves his legs on top of the duvet.

Derek looks down. Dex's thighs are muscled and freckled, covered with red hairs. A livid bruise blooms on his left quad, above his knee. Derek lays his hand over it. Dex hisses a breath out between his teeth. "Hurts?"

Dex isn't looking at him. Dex's breathing is slow and controlled, in through his mouth and out through his nose, a regular even four count. Dex's dick is tenting the front of his boxers.

"Hey, you want to be the boy who cried natural physiological reaction, no harm, no foul," Derek says lightly, and lifts his hand.

Dex laughs at that. "Sorry. My dick likes the idea of you touching it."

"And do you like the idea of me touching your dick?" 

Dex rolls his eyes, grabs Derek's hand, and places it back on his thigh. "Yes." And then, because he's so pathologically polite as to be almost Canadian, "Please."

Derek slides his hand up four inches and feels Dex shiver.

"A little unequal," Dex says. "You touching me and me not doing anything."

Derek pushes the duvet down. "If you want."

Dex swallows and nods. He doesn't go right for Derek's dick. He traces the curve of his ear and smooths his fingers over Derek's collarbone. His fingertips rasp against Derek's chest hair. He flattens his palm against Derek's side, moves it to his belly. Derek is trying to be good, really, trying not to be pushy, because is this a pity fuck? A daydream? A nightmare?--but as soon as Dex's hand gets to the hem of his boxers, he's lifting his hips up into the contact.

Dex laughs again. Derek grabs Dex's cock through the fabric. Dex stops laughing.

They jerk each other off slowly as the late morning sunlight pours in through the window.

Derek drops his head onto Dex's shoulder when he comes. Dex finishes a moment later, watching Derek's hand as though mesmerized. He gets some of his own come on his face. Derek laughs at him. Dex wipes his chin on Derek's shoulder.

"Gross!"

Dex passes him tissues. "Very." He flops back against the pillows and closes his eyes. Derek joins him.

When they wake up again, it's late afternoon, Derek is starving, and the headache he thought he had avoided is creeping in. "Dining hall?"

Dex sits up. "Yeah." He strips off his shirt and boxers, roots through his drawer. Derek makes a noise. Dex is beautiful, pale skin and muscle, pert perfect ass. "Stop drooling," he says without turning around.

Derek strips off his own underwear, finds his jeans--he folded them on Dex's desk chair, thank you Drunk Derek--and turns.

Dex looks like he's swallowed his tongue. "Convince me that I want food more than I want to blow you," he says.

Derek groans. "Later."

Dex hands him a clean pair of boxers. "Just get dressed, okay?" His face is pink. His neck is pink. His shoulders are pink. Derek peers interestedly to see if the pink does indeed go all the way down, and Dex throws a clean t-shirt in his face.

They walk to the dining hall and sit with Bitty, Tango, Whiskey, and Chowder.

"Nursey!" Chowder says. "You're alive!"

Derek gulps down half a glass of Powerade. "Yeah."

"Rough night?"

Derek shrugs. "I don't remember, so."

Chowder peers at him. Then he looks at Dex.

"I took care of him," Dex says grudgingly, and changes the subject.

* * *

They've been hooking up for about a week. Dex turns his head away every time Derek tries to kiss him, though. Is it a gay thing? He doesn't like kissing men? Bearded men? Scruffy men? Any men? It's starting to hurt, to feel like rejection.

So Derek finally asks about it. "Why don't you like to be kissed on the mouth?"

Dex shrugs.

"No, really," Derek says. "You get really tense and you turn your head away. And I don't mind, but I like to kiss and I wanted to know if I was doing something wrong."

"It's not because of you," Dex says slowly. Derek waits. Dex doesn't like to talk about himself. He talks with his hands: rehanging a crooked door, rebuilding a half-broken dryer, smoothing his fingers reverently up Nursey's ribs. But getting him to say actual words is hard sometimes.

"I was fifteen," Dex says. "And I went to this party some of the senior hockey guys threw. Had a couple drinks because they were so cool and I was so not. And this girl comes up to me." Dex shifts away so no parts of their bodies are touching. "We got to talking. I didn't really like her but I didn't want to be rude, and we kept talking. I kept drinking, too--you know when you're at one of those parties, with fuck all to do with your hands? Yeah. And eventually she backed me into a corner and started kissing me. And I thought, I'm supposed to want this. But I didn't, and she kept kissing me, and she put her hands on my belt buckle." Dex shifts away another inch. "Finally, my phone started going off and it was Sara calling to tell me I was about to blow curfew. So I zipped my pants back up and left. Marlie--that was her name--she tried to get my number and I gave her a fake one."

"Oh," Nursey says. He imagines it, some pretty shiny-haired girl, her tongue down Dex's throat, Dex pressed back against the wall.

"I'm not sure I ever said no," Dex says. Then, again, "I thought I was supposed to want it."

"I'm sorry," Derek says. "I'm sorry that happened to you."

Dex shrugs.

"Dude, no," NUrsey says. "I am. That was wrong, you know that, right? Someone doing something you didn't consent to? That's wrong, okay?"

"Okay," Dex says. He shifts over, until their shoulders touch. 

Derek considers Shitty's all purpose 'Thanks for trusting me with this moment' and discards it. Instead, "May I put my arm around you?"

"May," Dex mutters and rolls his eyes. "Yes. We can cuddle."

Derek puts his arm around him, and after a while Dex drops his head onto Derek's shoulder. Derek closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of Dex's cheap mint shampoo.

No kisses, he tells himself. No corners. No more lies.

"I've never told anybody that story before," Dex says. "I just didn't kiss people, and nobody had a problem with it, mostly."

Derek turns his head so he can press his lips against Dex's hair. "Thanks for telling me," he says. "And if you never want to kiss me, that's okay. And if it's something you want to try some time, that's okay too."

Dex sighs sleepily and nestles closer. "Okay." Derek listens as his breathing gets slower and slower, evening out into sleep.

He looks around. He can just reach the novel he has to read and his pack of Post-It flags. He moves carefully, not jostling Dex's head. One of Dex's hands rests on his hipbone. It burns his skin through his clothes.

Derek reads while Dex sleeps on him. Hours later, Derek is out of purple notes and has switched to orange. Dex wakes up.

"Time is it?"

Derek leans around him to see the alarm clock. "Quarter to six."

Dex yawns. "Team dinner soon."

"Mmm," Nursey says.

"Have you been working this whole time?"

Derek closes his eyes. "Yeah. I read too damn slow, you know? And if I don't read, they always call on me."

"Always," Dex agrees. He sits up. "I drooled on your shirt."

Derek notices the wet spot. "Yeah"

"Gross."

"Yes, but also cute. Just like you!"

Dex rolls his eyes at him. "Put on a clean shirt and let's go to dinner."

"We can go to dinner if you'll get off me," Derek says.

"I'll get you off," Dex mutters, then laughs at his own joke.

Nursey can't believe he's romantically involved with this idiot.


End file.
